On The Beat: Belle Isle and Middleton

Sgt Dan Ryder writes:

In June 2023, I transferred to West Yorkshire Police from Thames Valley Police, and I am now the Lead Sergeant role for the Middleton and Belle Isle area.

I have been a serving Police officer for 20 years and have spent many of these years on proactive teams who target criminals causing the most harm to the communities I have served. Upon my promotion 3 ½ years ago, I have focussed my career on the community Policing role; using my knowledge, experience and proactivity to target the community’s concerns.

I appreciate the frustrations of the community when it feels like there is no point reporting issues to the Police, however it does help your Neighbourhood Policing Teams by reporting these either on the phone or via the online webchat. This allows myself and my team to create a larger and more in-depth intelligence picture of the community, whilst also enabling me to bid for further resources to tackle the problems.

Every piece of information we receive gets evaluated and directed to the right team built to support the specific problem.
Since joining West Yorkshire Police, I have been identifying the main issues in the area and finding ways to tackle these problems. I do this by listening to the concerns of the community which are supported by the call demands made to the Police. From this, I have looked at how the Neighbourhood Policing Teams could improve in dealing with these issues and I have increased the number of Officers trained in specific skills as well as making operational changes into how we are policing certain issues.

With the work Inspector Lund has been doing to increase our staff levels, we are now starting to see in an increase in the Officers successfully targeting the off-road bikes by seizing these and prosecuting the offenders. We have also seen an increase in successful warrants and arrests in relations to drug supplying offences, several of which have led to custodial sentences.

The priorities currently set for my Middleton and Belle Isle team will be to focus on the anti-social and criminal use of off-road bikes. I also want to focus on the drug use and supply within this area. I review these 4 times throughout the year based on the concerns of the community and reporting of incidents. Although these are our priorities, we continue to monitor the levels and respond accordingly to our neighbourhood crime.

Offences such as burglaries and vehicle crime are always of most concern to our communities, my team maintain our policing operations and focus their patrols targeting these offences in order to keep the level of these offences down.
We regularly use our Facebook page – West Yorkshire Police South Leeds – to feedback our recent work and successful results in tackling not just our neighbourhood priorities, but the work that our neighbourhood officers do in keeping our communities safe.

I would again ask for help from our community members in ensuring that our social media is shared within your local community groups as this not only does it provide reassurance to the people we serve but can deter those criminals that target our communities.

Contact us on:
101 for non emergencies
999 if a crime is in progress or life is in danger
Via our live chat service: www.westyorkshire.police.uk/LiveChat (not 24/7)
or via our online reporting form: www.westyorkshire.police.uk/report-it

This post was written by Sgt Dan Ryder of the Leeds South Neighbourhood Policing Team

Photo: Another seized off road bike.

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